Shipping WJHS Plastic Football Field to Malaysia, 120 Tons of Crumb Rubber will Not be Recycled. #PlasticPollution #Landfill #UsedTires

Jan. 11, 2020, WJHS failed artificial turf field.

The Montgomery County Board of Education has announced their plan for the used plastic football field at Walter Johnson High School.  The 20 tons of green plastic grass will be rolled up and sent to Malaysia and the 120 tons of ground up tires used as infill will not be recycled.  

That would mean that the 120 tons of ground up tires is going to the County landfill in Southern Virginia.  There the 120 tons of WJHS crumb rubber will join the 100+ tons of crumb rubber and plastic football field from Richard Montgomery High School where those football fields will reside for the next 1,000+ years. 

According to their announcement, the Board of Education has contracted with Target Technologies International, Inc.  Target Technologies was featured in the recent FairWarning article Fields of Waste: Artificial Turf, Touted as Recycling Fix for Millions of Scrap Tires, Becomes Mounting Disposal Mess 

At this link Target Technologies explains their plan for used plastic football fields.  Target Technologies makes clear they are only recycling the plastic backing and green grass fibers.  They do not list any process for recycling the 120 tons of ground up tires used on each plastic football field. In fact, the Board of Education does not have a plan for recycling the 120 tons of ground up tires from the WJHS plastic football field in their removal plan.   

Target Technologies states that they partner with Poly-Pacific Inc.

Here is the Poly-Pacific Inc. warehouse in Malaysia:

This excerpt from the recent FairWarning article details the results of their investigation into the recycling that takes place in the Poly-Pacific location in Malaysia:

...FieldTurf once advertised a “take back” program where its customers can send fields back to the company at end-of-life so they can be recycled into coasters, park benches, garbage cans, shirts, school bags and new infill.

The program slideshow says nothing about sending the used turf over 8,000 miles away to Malaysia.  

This was the case for three fields that were removed from San Francisco over the last four years. City records show that a company called Target Technologies International, based in British Columbia, Canada, shipped the artificial grass to a recycling plant in Malaysia, where it was reportedly processed into new products. According to its website, Target Technologies says it recycles turf through an environmentally sound process and its owner boasted in 2017 that his is the “only company that recycles 100 percent of the synthetic turf” into post-consumer products.

San Francisco officials received three “certificate of compliance” letters signed by Target Technologies’ owner, John Giraud, guaranteeing that the turf from each field was recycled. 

“The Recreation and Park Department has been looking for all opportunities to recycle the material,” a San Francisco communications officer said in an email. “This was the only option at this time that we were able to find.”

But the communications officer did not answer a specific question from FairWarning about whether anyone from the city had ever toured the Malaysian plant. The official also didn’t say if anyone from San Francisco had ever examined the post-consumer products that Target Technologies claims to produce.

Giraud refused to respond to multiple phone calls and an email. FairWarning was unable to reach Thomas Lam of Poly-Pacific Inc., Target Technologies’ partner in Malaysia...

 https://www.fairwarning.org/2019/12/fields-of-waste-artificial-turf-mess/